Screeners say they're not getting enough training

Hartsfield-Jackson Airport

Posted: Friday, March 04, 2005

By Associated Press

ATLANTA - Some federal security screeners at the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport say pressure to avoid long lines at security checkpoints has led to them not getting the required amount of training.

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But the workers say they have been threatened with disciplinary action if they do not sign forms saying they have received the training, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports.

Short-staffed supervisors treat training as a luxury, the screeners say. As a result, instead of the required three hours a week of training, some say they only get a few minutes.

"I consider it fraud to sign for something I'm not getting," said Clarence Christian, a screener at the airport since October 2002. The Transportation Security Administration worker said he repeatedly refused to sign the form despite his supervisor's orders and was transferred from the airport's main checkpoint to the smaller T-gate checkpoint.

But Willie Williams, the federal security director for the Atlanta airport, said the complaints are the result of a misunderstanding and that the screeners do not understand what the TSA means by training. He denied that screeners are falsifying training forms.

"It's a misunderstanding," Williams said. "They thought of training as a more formalized thing, and they didn't think about briefings and other kinds of training."

Williams said training may include any change in procedure or local policy, a new prohibited item and may also involve reminding employees of shortcomings discovered during covert checks.

Employees sign the forms "to ensure that supervisors are doing the training they're supposed to," Williams said. Signing the forms is a local practice, not agency-wide policy, he said.

No Atlanta screener has ever been told to falsify a document, Williams said, adding that the TSA aggressively investigates allegations of impropriety.